Learning from winning.

May 21, 2009

May 20, 2009

I subscribe to a few magazines including Psychology Today, Oxygen, Entrepreneur and Time. This past weekend I read a great magazine article on the topic of Failure. This article detailed how experiencing failure is necessary in order to build the resilience, vigilance and wisdom required in any person’s complex life journey. Setbacks exist to teach us, not prevent us from reaching our goal. The sooner and faster we begin failing, the more precocious we become and therefore achieve more self
awareness.

Failure has played a large part in my life for I didn’t always get A’s or win every contest. In elementary school, I received an honorable mention’ for my first poetry contest submission. I underwent phases in my high school years when I became depressed and felt rejected. I wasn’t always positive or prepared, I didn’t always get the guy’. Yet regardless of my outcomes, I learned…I overcame…and most of all, I evolved into a wiser person.

While we can learn from losing, I also feel we can equally learn from winning. From a young age I began competing for scholastic achievements. In 2^nd grade, I wrote the most book reports. In 4^th grade I received the most responsible’ award 3 times in a row. In 6^th grade I became Student Council President. I won eight consecutive competitions and graduated with two degrees from a top, national college. Although failure teaches me how to overcome, success teaches me why I overcame.

If you really, really want something

You will get it.

What I’ve learned with my failures is not necessarily how to prevail past
the problem, instead, what I’ve learned is how to dig deeper into my
psyche and question why I don’t desire it’ more.

If I didn’t win a contest it was because I didn’t prepare my body, mind and spirit fully enough.
If a past relationship didn’t work it was because I didn’t love him enough.
If I didn’t hit my weight goal for the week it was because I wasn’t disciplined enough.

In the end….things don’t work, because we don’t make it work. There is something preventing us from achieving our truest potential to be present and prepared for the life task at hand. When you win when you succeed in achieving your ambitions, it teaches you that you can have what you want as long as you want it badly enough.

My good friend Brian will be graduating next week and becoming a Homeland Security Officer. This is a large achievement for him as he has been awaiting an opportunity to serve this country in an influential capacity for some time. Although he is one my closest friends, we haven’t always been in good terms. Our friendship was tested a few years ago when we were discussing his ambitions to work for our national security. After some debate as to why things have not progressed for him professionally I candidly told him that I felt he didn’t really want to work in national security, for if he really wanted to, then he wouldn’t be trapped by his setbacks and that this, this, and this’ would be done.

With friends, (and myself) I play a no excuses’ game when it comes to completing endeavors. Sometimes you have to seek your own self motivation when you aren’t reaping results.

Annoyed by my comment, Brian and I didn’t speak for a year. He wasn’t used to someone questioning his motives or pessimistically looking at his past potential. Instead of focusing on himself during our discussion, he focused on me. I brought out a truth that made him uncomfortable. It took months for him to see that I wasn’t the one standing in the way of his dreams it was he who was in his way this entire time. Today, we speak several times throughout the week. I’m so proud of his achievement. In winning’ he discovered his own internal might.

Life is all about you and what you want if you’re not getting it…ask yourself why. Maybe it will lead you down a different path or maybe it’s not something you truly want.

Journal Pictures: May 18, 2009

Fitness is a family business! Here we are at the Valley High Health and Fitness Expo.